


Forty Weeks

by Raj_Sound



Series: Post-Graduate Relationship Studies [3]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26332339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raj_Sound/pseuds/Raj_Sound
Summary: The pieces start coming together. The subtle hints from Shirley about things like nesting, which Jeff pointedly ignored as wishful thinking on his friend’s part. The less subtle hints from his mother about grandchildren to which Annie seemed oddly receptive. The longing look on Annie’s face as she handed their nephew back to his father. Side note: the fact that Willy Jr. is a dad now is downright inconceivable. And last, but not least, the binder containing Annie’s meticulously refined five-year plan strewn about and rearranged like a conspiracy theorist constructing a diorama.
Relationships: Annie Edison/Jeff Winger
Series: Post-Graduate Relationship Studies [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2068842
Comments: 61
Kudos: 130





	1. The Window

**Author's Note:**

> Consider this a future fic in the Intro to Community Fanfiction universe. I decided not to include it as part of the series since it takes place after the finale (yes, I have a finale planned for that) and it doesn't fall into the traditional episode format. You don't have to read that series to make sense of this, but for context it diverges at the end of Season 4, with Pierce, Troy, and Shirley all still around. Enjoy, and please let me know what you think in the comments.

Jeff Winger is pleased with himself as he pulls into his parking space. Not only was he successful at convincing twelve of his client’s peers that five police officers searching a young black college student’s car and person while he was sleeping at a rest stop without probable cause, consent, or a warrant was flagrantly unconstitutional, it also spoke to systemic racial profile issues across that entire police department. ACLU one, racist dirtbag cops zero.

Annie will be proud of him. Hell, even Britta will be proud of him, provided he’s willing to listen to her go on an anti-government rant for half an hour.

However, despite the fact that Annie’s car was parked in her space next to his, Annie is nowhere to be seen as he enters their apartment. He does hear her though, muttering to herself in their bedroom.

“Annie?” he asks, calling out to announce his presence. She probably brought a project from the lab home with her. She tends to spook easily when she’s focused on work, so making himself known is a good way to avoid wife-induced blunt force head trauma. Living above a Dildopolis for two years left her with a bit of a paranoid streak when it came to the possibility of home invasion, one that years of safer living arrangements hasn’t completely eliminated.

“In here,” she calls back. She sounds...off. Bad day at work perhaps. They were becoming more frequent. The new upper management at the Justice Department was more concerned with “order” than “justice” these days. It’s gotten bad enough to prompt Annie to look elsewhere for employment.

Jeff isn’t surprised to find Annie pouring over a series of binders on the floor of their bedroom. What does surprise and frankly concern him is how distressed Annie looks. Her brow is furrowed in concentration, which is usually cute, but her jaw is clenched and her shoulders tense, like she’s on the verge of a panic attack.

“You okay?” Jeff asks. He approaches her carefully and starts rubbing her back gently. She relaxes into his touch but doesn’t fully unclench.

“We’re not in the window yet,” she says.

“What?” Jeff asks, understandably confused.

“The window!” Annie repeats unhelpfully, gesturing to the binder in front of her. Jeff knows her as well as he knows himself, but he still can’t read her mind, so he’s going to need some context.

“Say more words,” he says gently.

“The baby window.”

Oh. Okay, now it’s Jeff’s turn to panic a little. Not that he doesn’t want this, he does, but this is more than a little unexpected.

“Are you pregnant?” he asks, trying and mostly succeeding at sounding calm for Annie’s sake.

“No...” she replies pensively. And now Jeff’s back to being confused again.

“No, but?”

“No,” she explains. “but I want to be.” She sounds almost ashamed of it.

The pieces start coming together. The subtle hints from Shirley about things like nesting, which Jeff pointedly ignored as wishful thinking on his friend’s part. The less subtle hints from his mother about grandchildren to which Annie seemed oddly receptive. The longing look on Annie’s face as she handed their nephew back to his father. Side note: the fact that Willy Jr. is a dad now is downright inconceivable. And last, but not least, the binder containing Annie’s meticulously refined five-year plan strewn about and rearranged like a conspiracy theorist constructing a diorama.

“How long have you been feeling this way?”

“I don’t know,” Annie says miserably. “But it’s driving me crazy. I’m seeing babies everywhere and I thought it was just hormones or something at first but it won’t go away. It’s all I can think about.” He helps her to her feet so she can lean into him, finally relaxing into his full embrace. She sniffles against his chest, then reaches up to wipe away her tears so she doesn’t stain his dry clean only suit with them.

“It’s not like you didn’t want kids before,” Jeff says gently as he holds her close. “Maybe you just want this more than you thought.”

“You’re not going to try to talk me out of it?” she asks.

“Why would I do that? We’re living proof that when you want something, you won’t let anything stand in your way of getting it,” he replies nonchalantly. It was true after all. Annie didn’t let Jeff’s age, cynicism, self-loathing, or high-functioning alcoholism get in the way of them building a loving and by all accounts, successful marriage. “And it’s not like I’m getting any younger.”

“Yeah, but we had a plan,” she insists, looking up at him that incredulously. “We have a plan. And it’s a good plan. And it doesn’t include me getting pregnant on this side of thirty.”

Jeff shrugs. “Plans change. You didn’t plan to get addicted to Adderall. I didn’t plan to get disbarred. Neither of us planned to spend five years at a community college. But if we didn’t, this, _us_ , never would have happened,” he says thoughtfully. “Sometimes you gotta loosen up, go off book. Right?”

Annie smiles at the memory. Jeff Winger and Annie Edison, Greendale Community College’s debate champions. Jeff keeps the framed clipping in his office, almost a decade later. It’s a nice little reminder of the day the spark between them first ignited, the day Jeff and Annie took that first step to becoming...Jeff and Annie.

“The heart wants what it wants,” Annie murmurs.

“So, I guess the question is, what do you really want?”

Annie looks down at the binder at her feet, then at the wedding ring in her hand, and then up at her husband, best friend, and partner-in-crime. Jeff looks down and smiles at his wife, best friend, and hero, his eyes full of love and support. He presses his lips to hers softly, like he’s asking her to tell him a secret.

“I really want a baby,” she whispers.

“Well then, let’s make a baby,” he replies with a grin. With that, he dips her down and scoops her into his arms, causing her to shriek before breaking into a fit of laughter.

“Jeff!” she protests as her carries her to their bed. “I’m still on birth control you weirdo.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t try,” he smirks.

Annie rolls her eyes. “This is why you should have paid attention in sex ed.”

“There was no sex ed at Greendale. There was a class on ladders, but there was no sex ed class.” There probably should have been. To this day, Greendale has an unplanned pregnancy rate higher than Riverside High School.

“There was an STD fair,” Annie reminds him.

“I remember that. God, you were so repressed back then. Couldn’t even say the p-word,” Jeff teases.

“Penis,” Annie replies flatly.

“Congratulations. You have a master’s degree in forensic science and the ability to say the English word for male genitalia.”

“Your pillow talk sucks Winger.”

“Your insults suck, _Mrs._ Winger.”

“I am so not having sex with you tonight.”

“Fine. I guess we can spend the evening updating your five-year plan.”

“Well, we’re going to have to if I’m going to let you knock me up.”

“Now whose pillow talk sucks?”

This went on for a while. It led to some giggly, fun, and thoroughly non-procreative sex, followed by a late night spent revising their five-year plan. All in all, not a bad evening in the Winger household.

* * *

Annie Winger, née Edison still struggles to go with the flow. She values order, rules, structure, planning, discipline, and predictability. She’s gotten a little better about accepting when things don’t go as planned. She hasn’t had any pen related meltdowns in years and she’s even taking the fact that she can no longer in good conscience work for this administration in stride.

However, biology, specifically her own, is testing the limits of her patience. This particular partner project seems simple compared to a terrarium. Teenagers get it right by accident all the time. Copulate. Inseminate. Fertilize. Implant. Gestate. Procreate. Simple, right?

So why can’t she do it? It’s certainly not for lack of trying. She’s even done the thing with the pillow under her hips after, which is so not romantic, but it’s supposed to help. But still, bupkis.

“You okay?” Jeff asks, with _concerned Jeff_ voice and _concerned Jeff face_. She knows he’s being all supportive and caring, but it makes her feel like a failure all over again.

“I got my period,” Annie says bitterly. And yes, she’s tired, achy, crampy, other otherwise irritable because of it, but that’s not why she wants to curl up into a little ball and sob.

“Chocolate?” Jeff replies, offering her a small piece of chocolate. Which is just the right combination of stupid, sweet, and strange to get a chuckle out of her. Being a woman is weird.

“Ugh. You’re worse than Abed,” she grumbles, begrudgingly accepting his offer.

“Where do you think I learned it from?” To his credit, Jeff doesn’t track her menstrual cycle in a notebook like her (probably) autistic former roommate once did. He just takes note of when she adds sanitary products to the shopping list and reacts accordingly.

“What if I can’t get pregnant?”

Oh good. It’s been a while since Annie freaked herself out over her inability to control the uncontrollable. Jeff was worried. This much normalcy isn’t normal.

“We’ve only been trying for a few months,” Jeff says carefully. 

“What if there’s something wrong with me?” Annie asks. She spent her entire childhood being told a lot of things were wrong with her, and even though she has a loving husband and supportive friends, sometimes she can still hear her mother’s voice in her head whispering about what a failure _Little Annie Adderall_ is. “After the pills and everything, what if I’m messed up inside, _barren_ or something?”

“It could be me you know,” Jeff points out. “I’m in my forties, and I spent half my life marinating my bloodstream in scotch.”

“Oh please,” Annie scoffs. “Men can have kids into their seventies. It’s so unfair.” Biology is a heartless bitch like that.

He realizes he said the wrong thing. It still happens every now and then, to the point where he no longer beats himself up about it, but he hates doing it when Annie’s feeling vulnerable. It’s not too late to fix it though. “It’s okay that you’re disappointed. I am too. Not in you,” Jeff clarifies, “just that this means a lot to the both of us and it’s disappointing that it hasn’t happened yet. But it will. I promise.”

“How do you know?”

“Because we are literally the best team in the history of the planet and we’re awesome at everything we set out to do together,” Jeff replies confidently. “Debate, paintball, mystery solving, lava jousting, you name it, we kick ass at it.”

That shakes her out of her funk. Appealing to Annie’s competitive side never fails. “Did you know that it takes the average couple seventy-eight sex acts to conceive?” she asks out of the blue.

“No. I’m not surprised you did though. I guess that means we need to have a lot more sex then.”

“Yeah, I can tell you’re real broken up about that, “Annie replies sarcastically.

“Absolutely devastated.”

Annie stands up on her tip toes to kiss her husband. It’s a quick kiss at first, but then he leans in again, gripping her waist to kiss her hungrily until the room is all floaty.

“What?” he asks, after she stares at him without speaking for a while.

“Nothing. It’s just, sometimes when you kiss me like that it feels like I’m nineteen again, under those fairy lights, after the transfer dance,” she replies, feeling a bit nostalgic.

“I can’t believe they called it the tranny dance,” Jeff mutters, shaking his head. Not the most romantic response he could have come up with, but it’s funny, and humor goes a long way in a relationship.

“Right? That did not age well.”

“No, it did not.”

“So offensive!”

They share a laugh at the expense of that weird, wonderful school where they fell in love. And really, compared to epic paintball wars, deposing despotic former Spanish instructors, saving the school from a Subway takeover, and all the other bizarre challenges they faced together over the years at Greendale, getting pregnant seems pretty simple.

“We’ve got this,” Jeff says warmly. And when Annie looks up into her husband’s eyes, she doesn’t see concern or doubt. She sees faith. In her, and in them.

And so, she believes him.

* * *

“I’m late,” Annie announces. She didn’t say anything the first day, or the second, hoping to avoid jinxing it. But by the third day, she couldn’t contain it any longer.

“Late or _late_?” Jeff asks.

“ _Late_ ,” she replies with barely contained glee. She manages not to squeal, but she bounces up and down on her toes with her fists balled up at her sides.

“Really?”

“It could be stress,” Annie explains, trying to manage her own expectations as well as her husband’s. “I mean, I’m normally very regular, but I might be a little off with the new job and everything, so I don’t want to get our hopes up.”

“When do you want to take a test?”

“In a couple of days. Shirley says it’s pointless to take it too soon.”

“You didn’t tell her, did you?” Jeff asks. Yes, the fact that she has three children of her own makes her a valuable source of information, but she’s also a terrible gossip and the last person they want to involve if they intend to keep this from the rest of the group for the time being.

“I may have mentioned that we were thinking about trying, but I didn’t give her more than that,” Annie replies.

Her answer satisfies Jeff. “Okay then. A couple of days. You want me to pick up some tests?”

“Get a couple. Different brands. From different stores. And be sure to check the expiration dates.”

“You know you can’t get extra credit on a pregnancy test, right?” Jeff teases.

“Jeff,” Annie whines.

“I’m going,” he laughs. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

* * *

Annie manages to wait one day before tearing open a pregnancy test.

“I can’t believe you have to pee on a stick,” Jeff says wryly.

“At-home pregnancy tests are pretty much all the same. They detect the hCG hormone,” Annie says matter-of-factly. “It’s the best way of detecting pregnancy science has come up with so far.”

“I’m just saying, how has medical technology not advanced to the point where we can scan you with a laser or something?”

“You sound like Troy,” Annie laughs. “Why can’t you we just like, shoot a laser at your business and see if there’s a baby in there?” Her Troy impression is about as good as her Christian Bale impression.

“So, now we just wait?”

“Yep.”

Waiting sucks. One would assume that two people that waited the better part of five years to act on their feelings for one another would be better at waiting, but Jeff paces like a mental patient and Annie plays an off-beat drum solo on her knees with her hands.

“Do you think evil versions of us have any kids?” Annie asks.

“For the last time, there are no dark timelines,” Jeff groans.

“You don’t know that. The multiverse hypothesis could be true you know.” Jeff can be a bigger buzzkill than Britta sometimes.

“And now you sound like Abed. Cigarettes,” he adds in a sultry tone.

“That’s not Abed,” Annie protests. “That’s Don Draper.”.

“No, that was Abed pretending to be Don Draper.”

Annie considers this for a moment. “Okay. I’ll give it to you.”

The timer finally beeps. Both of them freeze.

“Do you want to look, or should I?” Jeff asks.

Annie releases the breath she didn’t realize she was holding. “Together?” she asks.

“Together.”

And, just like always, Annie aces the test.

“I’m pregnant,” she whispers.

“Yeah,” is all a choked-up Jeff can add.

“I’m gonna be a mom.”

“I’m gonna be a dad.”

“I love you,” they both say at the same time. The jinx shakes them out of their shocked stupor and they share a loving smile.

“You’re gonna be a _great_ dad.”

“You’re gonna be an _amazing_ mom.”

“We’ve got this,” they resolve. They’ve always been an incredible team.


	2. A Thousand Percent Realer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before, pregnancy was a series of symptoms. Just something new and weird and uncomfortable happening to her body, like puberty, or puberty part two, when Annie’s boobs grew, which unfortunately was after high school. Something she could make sense of. Something she could put on a list.
> 
> This made it something entirely different, something neither of them could even begin to make sense of. Something like quantum physics or falling in love.

Annie has developed a complicated relationship with the toilet in their apartment. The morning sickness isn't that bad, especially compared to some of the horror stories she’s heard from other women over the years. It's brief, which is merciful, and true to its name, as it only hits her first thing in the morning. But when it hits, it hits with a vengeance.

"Can I get you anything?" Jeff asks sympathetically as he rubs his wife's back. "Soup? Crackers? An exorcism?" 

"Don't make me laugh," Annie groans into the bowl, "or I'm gonna throw up again."

"How? Pretty sure that's all of last night's dinner and possibly some of yesterday's lunch in there."

"Ugh. Why would you say that to me?"

"Just trying to be helpful."

"Well, you suck at it."

"I love you too."

Annie takes a seat on the bathroom floor, leaning against the cabinet. Jeff flushes the toilet for her, then steps out for a moment to bring her a glass of water. "Thanks," she says, taking a sip. She does feel better now, though she lacks the energy to stand up at the moment.

Actually, hold that thought. Annie dives for the toilet again, retching up the water she just swallowed. Jeff cringes as he stands by awkwardly, bewildered and helpless. Should he hold her hair back? That’s a thing, right?

Annie collapses against the cabinet again once she’s finished. Jeff takes a seat next to her, then takes her hand in his, rubbing his thumb gently over the top of her hand. She always liked his hands. They're big and strong, but his fingertips are soft, because real talk, Jeff might work out like a fiend, but he doesn't do any actual manual labor if he can avoid it.

"I'll probably end up saying this a lot, but I want to thank you for doing this for us," Jeff says. "I know it's rough."

"It'll get better," Annie says wearily. So, she's heard, at least. Her mother told her both of her pregnancies were smooth and easy after the first couple of months, and Annie is basically her clone, in appearance at least. Of course, her mother also insists that any woman who puts on more than twenty pounds during a pregnancy might as well sign both herself and her child up for fat camp, so her advice is best taken with a grain of salt. 

"Well, until the end anyway," Jeff muses. "I hear that's kind of a horror show."

"Some women say childbirth is the most meaningful experience of their lives."

"Those women are insane."

"You are killing at this," Annie says sarcastically. "You know that, right?"

"Sorry."

"'sokay," she shrugs. "I knew what I was getting into when I married you."

"Seriously though. I think you are amazing for doing this," Jeff insists. "And I already thought you were pretty freakin' amazing."

"Mmmm. Say more nice things."

"You're basically a superhero."

"Are there pregnant superheroes?"

"There was that one in Juno."

"Juno was a superhero?"

"No, there was a comic book or something," Jeff explains, frowning as he struggles to recall a vague detail from a movie that came out before the two of them met. Annie was in high school herself when Juno was in theaters, he recalls with a frown. _But she was an adult when he met her and she pursued him and she loves him and he would never do anything to her without her informed, enthusiastic consent,_ he reminds himself for the five thousandth time. Old insecurities die hard. "I don't remember. Abed would know."

"I should call him,” Annie mentions. “I haven't talked to him in a while." They text constantly, but she owes him a proper phone call.

"That's risky. If you talk to him for more than a minute or two, he’ll figure out that you’re pregnant."

"How?" They agreed they wouldn’t tell anyone until she started to show, but it’s not like she’s going to blurt it out or anything.

"He's Abed," Jeff replies, as if that's enough of an explanation on its own. Which, it kind of is.

* * *

Annie tenses up from the cold of the conductive gel making contact with her skin. The ultrasound technician shrugs apologetically, then spreads it over her tummy with the small metal wand. Jeff seems just as nervous as she is, gripping her hand just a little too hard. She’s doing the same thing to him, but he doesn’t complain about the death grip she has on his fingers.

“Is this your first?” the technician asks shrewdly in a heavy accent. She’s a portly, fifty-something Hispanic woman who has probably done this a few thousand times.

“Uh huh,” Annie says nervously.

“Relax. You’re in good hands.”

The tech looks intently at the monitor as she slowly runs the wand over Annie’s abdomen.

“Can you see anything?” Jeff asks. The monitor shows swirls of grey on black.

“I see…something?” Annie replies, like it’s more of a question than a statement.

“Right there,” the tech says, pointing at the screen. “That’s your baby. There’s the head,” she continues, pointing to a part of gray blob inside a dark space surrounded by more gray, “and there’s the rest of him. Or her. Too early to tell at this point.”

“Oh yeah. I totally see it,” Jeff lies.

“Really?” Annie tilts her head, trying to see what her husband sees.

“No, not at all,” he shrugs. “It just looks like a grainy blob.”

“It really does,” Annie replies, sounding a little disappointed.

“And this is the heartbeat,” the technician says with a knowing smile as she presses a button on the monitor. Jeff gets the feeling she did this on purpose. She seems to have a flair for the dramatic.

It sounds like a heartbeat. It’s fast and surprisingly loud, and it sounds like it’s coming from underwater, but it is unequivocally someone else’s heartbeat coming from inside Annie’s body. Before, pregnancy was a series of symptoms. Just something new and weird and uncomfortable happening to her body, like puberty, or puberty part two, when Annie’s boobs grew, which unfortunately was after high school. Something she could make sense of. Something she could put on a list.

This made it something entirely different, something neither of them could even begin to make sense of. Something like quantum physics or falling in love.

“Wow,” Annie whispers.

“Yeah,” Jeff stammers.

“Is it just me, or did this just get a thousand percent realer?”

“Yeah.” Words fail him.

“On a scale of one to ten, how badly are you freaking out right now?”

“Like a seven?” Jeff replies, again inflecting the statement like it’s a question.

“Well, there isn’t a Jeff-shaped hole in the wall,” Annie teases, "so I’ll take that as a positive sign.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s good. I don’t think I can do this without you.”

“So, what about you? How bad are you freaking out?” Jeff asks.

“You remember when we couldn’t find my pen?” Annie asks.

“Yikes. That bad, huh?” Jeff asks. “To be fair, I think we both went a little crazy that day.”

“We all did. Hey! That was the day we found out Shirley was pregnant, remember?”

“You’re right. Weird. That was a weird year.”

“Not as weird as the gas leak year,” Annie points out.

“True.”

The poor ultrasound technician has no idea why this strange couple is talking about missing pens and gas leaks, but she does have other patients to attend to. “I’m going to give you two a minute,” she interjects. “Do you want a picture? We don’t provide prints, but you can take a picture with your phone if you like.”

Annie changes her wallpaper to the grainy grey blob on the ride home. Jeff does the same as they walk up to the stairs to their apartment. Later when they’re in bed, Jeff gently lays his head on Annie’s belly, pressing his ear against her skin, and even though it isn’t physically possible, he swears he can hear that heartbeat.

* * *

Jeff decides to quit drinking. He tells Annie it’s out of solidarity and support for her pregnancy, but the truth is he’s been using alcohol as a crutch for decades. Now that he’s going to be a father, he wants to be the best father he can be, and given how reflexively he relies on alcohol to manage stress and other bad feelings, it seems that sobriety is a prerequisite.

He doesn’t have a lot of memories of his dad, but in nearly every one he can recall, his father had a drink in his hand. Jeff doesn’t want to risk repeating old patterns and he knows that despite his best intentions, that risk is very real. That doesn’t make actually doing it any easier. Scotch has been one of his oldest friends. He tries going cold turkey, even going as far as to pour his remaining bottles down the sink, but he ends up replacing them with new bottles a couple of hours later.

Naturally, Annie picks up on all of this. Of course, she’s the last person that would judge him for it. She simply offers her love and support.

“Have you thought about going to meetings?” Annie asks. “It can help.” She hasn’t gone to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting in years, but she remembers them well. They helped.

“Not really,” Jeff says reluctantly. “I have enough trouble talking to my therapist. I don’t really see myself opening up to a group of strangers.” Which, fair enough. It took years for Jeff to truly show the study group his heart, Annie included.

“Well, technically I can’t be your sponsor or anything, and alcohol wasn’t my drug of choice, but I did a little research, and I’m sure I can help,” Annie says confidently.

“I don’t want to make this your problem,” Jeff mutters, avoiding her gaze. “You’ve got enough on your plate.” Between work, pregnancy, and the stress of how pregnancy will affect work, Annie’s already dealing with enough as is.

Annie takes his hand and squeezes it, then stares him down until he eventually gives in and meets her eye. “Don’t do that. Don’t shut me out,” she says firmly. “We’re a team, remember?”

He remembers.

“Did I ever tell you how I got this scar?” he asks. Jeff lifts the hem of his shirt to show her the small scar on his abdomen. Until today, Britta was the only person in his life that mattered to him that knew this story.

Annie shakes her head and smiles her _I’m here for you_ smile. “Do you want to tell me about it?” she asks.

He doesn’t. He doesn’t want the woman he loves to know just how broken he is. But he tells her anyway. “One time, when I was in seventh grade, I told everyone at school that I had appendicitis…”

He tells Annie about the scissors and the self-inflicted scar and the cards he kept under his bed for all those years to remind him that once upon a time, somebody cared about him. He tells her something else too, something he didn’t share with Britta. He tells her that this was the day he learned that alcohol was good for numbing pain.

The strangest part of all of this is how easy it is to tell her. Annie doesn’t judge him, or try to therapize him, or do anything at all really. She just lets him talk. And when he’s done talking, she tells him that she loves him and that’s she’s proud of him. Because as luck would have it, Annie’s kind of broken too. She gets it. She gets _him_.

He starts going to meetings. He’s a little proud of the silver chip and also little embarrassed, because _it’s only been twenty-four hours_ for crying out loud. But he keeps going to meetings. And one day he’ll have a bronze chip commemorating a year of sobriety, just like hers.

* * *

It’s late when they get the call, the one they’ve been dreading since Shirley dropped out of one of the group video calls, only to come back and announce that the cancer was back. It’s fast and aggressive and her father decides that he doesn’t want chemo, that he’s ready. They’re on a flight to Atlanta first thing the next morning. Annie’s nervous to fly in her condition and Jeff is worried on her behalf, but it’s _Shirley_ , so they don’t even discuss it beyond booking the flight and making arrangements with work.

The last time all seven of them were together was for the launch party of Troy and Abed’s new production company. They were dressed in what each of them considered to be appropriate for a Hollywood gala. Today they’re all wearing black.

“Thank you for coming Jeffrey,” Shirley says. She looks awful, gaunt and worn, like she’s been trapped in a cave without food or light.

“Of course,” Jeff replies as he hugs her tight. He makes a mental note to make her eat something.

Annie’s already crying by the time it’s her turn to hug the woman she considers more of a mother than her own. The others take turns hugging Shirley as well, even Abed. Pierce whispers something to Shirley mid-hug that gets a laugh out of her, which is an unexpected and pleasing surprise to both of them.

The service is nice, as funerals go. It’s a little awkward for Annie, Jeff, Britta, and Pierce. None of them are Christians and they’re the only white people at a very large black church. Shirley manages to keep her composure through her eulogy, only to break down in once she gets back to her seat. Andre and her children are there to hold her.

Shirley’s family stands at right side as her father’s coffin is lowered into the ground. Her other family, her Greendale family, stands at her left.

Pierce manages to avoid saying anything offensive during the reception, which is something of a small miracle. The copious amount of food helps. “These are delicious,” he says through mouthfuls of cookies. Shirley is both disgusted and pleased.

Abed is mostly indifferent to the change of setting, able to not-quite fit in pretty much anywhere. “It’s strange that it’s sunny out. It’s supposed to rain during a funeral episode,” he observes, which the pretty young woman Shirley just knew he’d hit it off with takes in stride.

Britta makes a few comments intended to be affirming of African-American church tradition that end up coming off as awkward and alienating. It probably would have helped if she didn’t say, “Even though I’m an atheist, I think…”

Troy keeps Shirley’s children company, regaling them with age-appropriate tales of his adventures on the high seas. “So, there I was, facing down a dozen Somali pirates with nothing but an oar and that crazy old white dude over there…”

Jeff somehow gets trapped in a theological conversation with Shirley’s pastor. Annie tries to rescue him, only to get caught up in it herself. Annie reluctantly admits that she’s Jewish when he asks about her religious affiliation. Jeff claims to be Jewish as well, taking the path of least resistance. Annie shoots him a bemused look, but goes along with it.

The couple manage to excuse themselves from the pastor, stealing away to a quiet corner to talk for a moment. “I know we said we’d tell them once I started to show, but let’s wait, okay? I don’t want to make today about us,” Annie says. They originally planned to announce her pregnancy at the group’s next Dungeons and Dragons session, but recent events put the campaign on hiatus.

“It would probably cheer Shirley up,” Jeff notes, “but I think we should wait too.” She’s barely showing anyway, and she’s wearing black, so it’s unlikely anyone would notice unless they went out their way to notice.

Or, unless their name is Abed Nadir. “Hey guys. Are you reevaluating your lives? Reexamining your priorities? You’re not going to spiral, are you?” he asks. “Funerals tend to have that effect on people.”

“We’re fine Abed,” Annie reassures him.

He stares at her for a moment. “You’re pregnant,” he announces, as casually as one might announce the weather. Luckily, no one else is in earshot.

Neither of them bothers denying it or asking how he knows. It’s _Abed_. He has powers. “Don’t tell the others yet,” Jeff orders.

Abed nods. “I won’t,” he replies. Jeff and Annie both relax. The only time Abed has failed to keep a secret was when he didn’t know there was a secret to keep. They trust him.

Abed turns to leave, but he changes his mind and turns to address Annie instead. “You’re gonna be a good mom. You’re a very caring and nurturing person.”

“Awww. Thanks Abed,” Annie beams. He’s a strange man, but he can be very sweet.

“Do you think I’ll be a good dad?” Jeff asks, genuinely curious, and a little worried about what his answer will be.

“Maybe,” he says thoughtfully. “Depends on how hard you try.”

“I’m going to try really hard.”

“Then you’ll be a good dad,” Abed replies simply. “We should change the subject. The others are coming.”

When asked, they tell the group they were talking about how good the bagels are, which gets an easy laugh at Britta’s expense when she tries to avoid saying the word bagel, which hard to do in a conversation about bagels.

“Baggle. There, are you happy?” Britta says crossly. It’s never not funny. They all laugh, including Shirley, and it’s so good to hear her laugh that they’re all able to forget why they’re here for a moment.

“Daddy really would have liked you guys,” Shirley says fondly. “Well, except Pierce. No offense.”

“None taken,” Pierce says through a mouthful of cookies. “I’m an acquired taste.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Little_Annie_Adderall for beta reading!


	3. It Came Up Organically

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Speaking of families,” Shirley starts. Annie reaches for Jeff’s hand, bracing herself for the conversation they put off a good two months longer than they intended. “Jeff, Annie, you two have been married for a few years now. When are you gonna start a family?”
> 
> “Shirley! Don’t encourage them to breed. Two Wingers are bad enough,” Britta complains. Jeff grins his _I know something you don’t know_ grin.

Annie is in a good mood. She gets to testify as an _expert witness_ at an actual trial for the first time today. She wears a smart blazer, which hides the baby bump, and glasses in lieu of contacts, since Jeff says they make her look a bit older and therefore more credible to a jury. She’s bolstered by this, and the fact that he’s sitting at the defense counsel table. He’s only the co-counsel though, so he won’t be asking her any questions today, but it’s nice knowing that he’s there.

“Milady.”

“Milord.”

They quietly exchange their signature greeting as she passes Jeff on the way to the witness stand. It's the Wingers shorthand for _I value you_ , _I respect you_ , and _I love you_. Jeff’s boss shoots them both a quizzical look, but he shrugs it off.

Jeff used to tease her about being part of the “adulthood begins at thirty” generation, but she doesn’t look anything like a lost twenty-something trying to find herself in that courtroom. She looks cool, collected, and confident. Like a professional. She answers each of the defense counsel’s questions flawlessly, just like they rehearsed. And rehearsed, and rehearsed, and rehearsed.

Jeff flashes Annie an encouraging Jeff Winger _I believe in you_ smile as the prosecutor approaches her for cross examination. He looks like he’s named Chad or something and talks about taking his boat out on the water on the weekend. What a tool. And okay, he’s probably a perfectly nice guy just doing his job, but today he’s the enemy and he can suck it. Annie freakin’ destroys him, which is easy since the facts are on her side. Physical evidence beats so-called eyewitness testimony any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Forensics for the win.

Annie’s feeling even better when Jeff announces the not guilty verdict later that evening. She beat him home by a few hours and has since slipped into something a little more comfortable. They haven’t had sex much in the last few weeks due to the fatigue and nausea. But today it’s like her libido switch has been flipped. Maybe it’s the high from the win or maybe she’s finally turned the corner, pregnancy-wise, but one way or another, the floodgates are open, metaphorically speaking.

Her husband is a beautiful man. She loves those laugh lines around Jeff’s eyes, that somehow make him look both wise and youthful. She’s glad he’s learned to let the kid stuff go and accept that he’s older. He’s got that sexy silver fox thing going for him now, which she’s super into. The fact that he’s got the physique of a Greek god doesn’t hurt either.

Yeah, Annie needs to get laid.

“You were amazing today,” Jeff beams.

“Uh huh,” Annie says dismissively as she practically launches herself at him. Not that she doesn’t appreciate hearing a rave review of her courtroom performance, but priorities. She moans as she kisses him hungrily, shooting him a _why don’t we take this to the bedroom_ look through half-lidded eyes.

Only Jeff doesn’t seem to pick up on her not at all subtle signals. Which means he’s ignoring them. Which is annoying. Shirley warned her that he might be like this, that he might freak out a little at the prospect of sex during pregnancy. Andre did apparently, which was a point of needless frustration for the both of them.

Annie decides to skip any subtlety. She’s too turned on for it anyway. “Bedroom?” she says, like it’s both a question and a command.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Jeff asks.

She’s officially annoyed. It feels like Season Three all over again. Does she need a t-shirt that says _Make love to me Jeff Winger_ with an arrow pointed at her face? Normally she loves how protective he is, but just because she’s pregnant doesn’t mean she’s made of glass.

 _Unless_ , that little insecure part of her brain whispers, _it’s because he doesn’t find you attractive now that your body’s going all fun house mirror on him._

“Do you not want to?” she asks, suddenly unsure and self-conscious. “I know I’ve put on some weight, but…”

Jeff cuts her off. “It’s not that,” her reassures her. “First of all, whatever weight you have put on has gone to all the right places.” He takes a very unsubtle look at her chest, which makes her blush a bit. It’s no secret that Jeff’s the President of the Annie’s Boobs Fan Club. “I just don’t want to hurt you. Either of you.”

Annie grins and rolls her eyes. She can work with this. “The doctor said sex during pregnancy is perfectly safe,” she explains. “And healthy.”

“You asked her about that?” Jeff asks with a bemused grin.

“It came up organically.”

“And you’re sure…”

“I’m not gonna break Jeff,” Annie insists. “You’re not going to make me beg, are you?”

He looks down at her. Her face is flushed, her brow furrowed, her eyes focused, her lips pouting in frustration like she does when she isn’t getting her way. Pregnant or not, this woman is so unbelievably sexy Jeff can barely stand it.

“While that would do wonders for my ego,” he replies, “I don’t think that’s really necessary.”

Annie smiles. She always loves winning arguments.

Later, when they’re sweaty and breathless, Jeff can’t help but marvel at how freaking beautiful his wife is. Her silky hair, her creamy skin, her bright blue eyes, her glowing smile. Looking at Annie Winger is like looking at the sun.

“That was fun,” Jeff murmurs.

“That was _very_ fun,” Annie replies, practically purring. “God, I needed that.”

“Looks like the case isn’t the only thing you got an A plus on today.”

Annie grins. She appreciates being recognized for a job well done. “You want to go for extra credit?” she asks in a sultry tone, running her fingers down his chest.

Jeff lets out a cheery groan. “Give me like, fifteen minutes to recover first?” he asks.

It’s more like ten.

* * *

“Jeff? Jeff wake up.”

“Wazhappenin?” Jeff mumbles incoherently. “Are you okay? Is something wrong?” Panic creeps into his voice.

“Feel,” Annie orders, placing his hand against her stomach. “You feel that?” she asks, moving his hand to the right spot.

“Feel what?”

“She kicked.”

“She kicked?”

“She kicked! There, you feel it?” Annie asks excitedly. “She did it again!”

“Sorry Annie,” Jeff frowns. “I can’t feel anything.”

Annie is way too giddy for any disappointment to register. “She’s really in there,” she marvels.

“This just got a thousand times realer, didn’t it?” Jeff asks, wishing he could feel what she’s feeling.

Annie nods happily.

He kisses her, even though her lips are dry, and his breath probably isn’t great. “I love you.”

“I love you.”

“You going to be able to sleep?”

Annie shakes her head with an emphatic _no_ , grinning uncontrollably. Jeff chuckles and sits up, knowing that if Annie can’t sleep, he’s not going to either.

They stay up the rest of the night coming up with names.

* * *

“Troy and Abed making content!” Troy and Abed sing in unison through the speakers as their screens appear on Jeff and Annie’s computer. Jeff rolls his eyes at the duo while Annie waves at them happily through the web camera.

“Guys, knock it off. This isn’t your YouTube channel,” Jeff scolds them.

“Hi Troy. Hi Abed,” Annie says cheerfully. “Congratulations on hitting ten million subscribers! That’s seriously impressive.”

“Thanks,” Abed replies. “We’re trying not to let the fame go to our heads.”

“PewDiePie can suck it!” Troy adds. Their enmity with the streamer is well-documented.

“Who would have thought you’d end up in a digital feud with an anti-Semitic Internet celebrity?” Jeff muses.

“Annie, will you tell your husband that he’s dangerously close to becoming a bigger buzzkill than Britta?” Troy asks sarcastically.

“Jeff, Troy says...” Annie parrots dutifully.

“I know. I heard him,” Jeff sighs. “And you’re supposed to be on my side.”

“Yo! Britta in the house!” Britta proclaims as her screen pops up. She’s wearing glasses she actually needs now. They do not make her look smarter. “What are you guys talking about?”

“We’re trying to figure out which of you is the bigger buzzkill, you or Jeff,” Abed replies.

“Speaking of killing buzzes, have you guys heard about what’s been happening to all the bees lately?” Britta asks, as if she’s the first person to tell them about it.

Jeff, Annie, Troy, and Abed all groan.

“It’s definitely Britta,” Abed declares, to which no one objects.

“Anyway, congratulations on the new job Annie,” Britta segues. Annie takes the bait.

“Thanks! I took a pay cut, but in light of recent circumstances, it seemed like the right move,” Annie explains. Recent circumstances being the fact that the government is rapidly being taken over by cronies and sycophants and anyone with anything resembling intelligence and integrity is abandoning ship. “Plus, now Jeff and I get to work together!”

“We always did make a good team,” Jeff says. He looks over at his wife, and they share a look, as well as those little loving smiles they reserve exclusively for each other. If they were paying attention, they’d notice the others groaning, rolling their eyes, or otherwise mocking them for making googly eyes at each other for like the millionth time.

Shirley’s face appears on the screen, which gets Jeff and Annie’s attention. “Hellooo,” she chimes.

“Hi Shirley!” Annie says as she waves.

“Hey Big Cheddar,” Jeff says affectionately. He hopes she’s taking care of herself properly. Shirley looks better than she did last time they saw her, but she’s still not herself.

“I’m not late, am I?” Shirley asks.

“No, we still have a few minutes. We were just catching up,” Abed assures her.

“How’s everything going Shirley? Do you need anything?” Troy asks kindly.

“Oh, you know. Just taking things one day at a time,” Shirley replies wearily.

“When are you going back to Greendale?” Jeff asks.

“Hopefully later this month,” she sighs. “A nice young couple made an offer on the house, so once that’s taken care of, I’ll be able to wrap things up here.”

“It’ll be good to have you back. Andre and the boys miss you like crazy,” Britta says.

“Speaking of families,” Shirley starts. Annie reaches for Jeff’s hand, bracing herself for the conversation they put off a good two months longer than they intended. “Jeff, Annie, you two have been married for a few years now. When are you gonna start a family?”

“Shirley! Don’t encourage them to breed. Two Wingers are bad enough,” Britta complains. Jeff grins his _I know something you don’t know_ grin.

“Actually,” Annie starts, “we were going to wait a little longer to tell you guys, but...”

“Oh my God! I’m going to be an uncle?” Troy cries. He falls out of frame for a second, as if he fell out of his chair. Not quite the reveal Annie was hoping for, but it’s pretty much on brand for this group.

“I thought Annie’s boobs looked bigger,” Pierce’s voice announces. He isn’t on the screen, which means he probably forgot to turn on his camera.

“Pierce!” Annie cries angrily. “Gross!” They are, because pregnancy boobs, but it’s downright creepy for her quasi-father figure to point it out.

“Hi Pierce,” Jeff says flatly, preparing to give yet another lecture that is sure to fall on deaf ears. “Two things. One: Stop talking about my wife’s boobs.”

“What?” Pierce protests. “It came up organically.”

“Two: We can’t see you. Click the icon with the little camera on it.”

Pierce hangs up instead. Boomers occasionally struggle with modern technology, and Pierce is not an especially intelligent boomer.

“Oh, that’s nice!” Shirly says happily “You bein’ pregnant, not Pierce’s inappropriate comments about your body. How far along are you? Can I be the godmother? We can baptize her in my church!”

Annie is prepared. “Twenty weeks, maybe, and definitely not, but you can come to her bat mitzvah,” she says kindly. She stands up briefly so she can get her baby bump in frame and show it off for everyone.

“Awww,” Britta, Shirley, and Troy coo.

“How do you know it’s a girl?” Jeff asks, bemused. Annie’s been doing that for the last couple of weeks, even though the last ultrasound wasn’t clear enough for the doctor to decide one way or the other.

“Just a hunch,” Annie replies. She rubs her belly and smiles when she feels another little flurry of kicks. She doesn’t actually know, and she’d be perfectly happy with a boy too, despite Jeff’s weird fixation with the name Sebastian that she’ll have to talk him out of if it comes down to it. But gun to her head, yes, a little girl would be nice.

“Britta, you owe me twenty bucks,” Troy announces.

Pierce’s face pops up on the screen, only now it looks like his microphone is turned off. His mouth is moving, but there’s no audio.

“I’m not saying I doubt Annie’s maternal intuition,” Britta replies, “but I’m not paying up until after the kid is born.”

Jeff rolls his eyes. “Of course, you jerks bet on this,” he scoffs.

“Is there another pool going?” Pierce yells, having finally turned on his microphone. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“A baby’s definitely going to change up the group dynamic,” Abed ponders. “Maybe we should repilot.”

“I think it’ll be a few years before she’s able to play,” Jeff reassures him. Annie grins at him mischievously at him. They are so having a little girl. “Shut up.”

“Now that everyone’s here, we should probably get started, right?” Britta asks.

“Indeed. When last we met, your party made camp in the forest outside Greendale Castle. The locals swear the woods are haunted. Many travelers have lost their way in these woods, never to be seen again,” Abed exposits ominously. “You hear a rustling in the trees and whispers that sound like the mutterings of goblins. What do you do?”

Shirley is more engaged than expected, probably grateful for the distraction, and her Dwarf Barbarian smashes a lot of goblin heads. Annie decides Hermione the elf ranger should be pregnant too, but then complains when Abed gives her a level of exhaustion. Abed insists he’s only trying to make the game feel authentic. Jeff only gets called out for playing on his phone three times during the game. The first time he was sending a group text to everyone but Annie, asking if they’d be able to throw her a baby shower. The second time he was reading the replies. The third time he was playing Fruit Ninja.

Britta agrees to take charge of the baby shower, and then immediately rolls a one during an important conversation with the king, which gets her bard Blinkie sent to the dungeons. Pierce’s paladin aptly named Pierce Hawthorne manages not to die horribly for once, which he considers an accomplishment. Unfortunately, Troy’s character does die horribly courtesy of some spikes, a failed perception check, and Pierce’s incompetence, so he spends the rest of the session making a new, more awesome character.

All in all, it’s a pretty good game.

* * *

Now that the study group knows, Annie _has_ to tell her mother.

Ugh.

“Things are better now, but you know how she is,” Annie laments. “She still hasn’t forgiven us for getting married in the study room.”

“She’s lucky she was invited,” Jeff growls. Annie’s right. Things are better between them, but he’s still not a fan of Ruth Edison. They’re cordial, but only just. “We can wait. If you want.”

Annie shakes her head. “No. I can’t hide it anymore,” she says, looking pointedly at the now fairly prominent swell of her stomach, “and if she hears about it from anyone else, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Better now than before the bris I guess,” Jeff shrugs.

“ _If_ it’s a boy,” she replies, still completely convinced it’s a girl, “we’re skipping the bris. Seems like the sort of thing someone should be able to decide for themselves, and it’s not like my mother can disown me twice.”

“What about ‘tradition?’” Jeff asks with implied air quotes. Annie doesn’t take her religious commitments nearly as serious as Shirley. She’s never mentioned a desire for Jeff to convert or anything. Nevertheless, he knows it’s an important aspect of her identity and he’s happy to raise their children as members of the tribe, so to speak.

“Hey, if Abed doesn’t have to be a good Muslim, I don’t have to be a good Jew…ish woman.” Annie frowns as she stumbles over the word.

“It feels weird when you don’t say the whole word now, doesn’t it?”

“Right? Add that to this list of things Pierce has ruined for me.”

Jeff chuckles. “Jewy,” he grins, quoting his oldest and most racist friend.

Annie groans. “I can’t believe I let him walk me down the aisle,” she says scandalously.

“Did I ever tell you I saw him talking to your mom after the wedding?” Jeff asks. It never occurred to him to mention it earlier, but Pierce and Ruth did seem strangely chummy at the reception.

Annie stares daggers at her husband. “What?” she asks, horrified by the implications.

“I’m just saying, it seemed like they were hitting it off.”

“Oh my God! Why would you tell me that?” Annie cries.

“You could be one of Pierce’s future ex-step-daughters,” Jeff teases. This is one of those situations where there isn’t a way to make it better and making it worse is a lot more fun.

“Just…stop talking!”

She’ll forgive him eventually.

* * *

Annie has a standing weekly phone call with her mother in lieu of the _let’s get to know each other again_ weekly dinners they had back in Greendale, now that they live in different time zones. It’s as good a time as any to drop the news. She decides to skip the small talk.

“Mom, I’m pregnant,” Annie says, hoping for the best and bracing herself for the worst. Ruth has been trying, she really has, but she still struggles with the whole controlling, judgmental, _you are a child and I know best_ attitude she took towards her daughter for the majority of their relationship.

Her mother doesn’t say anything. For an unnervingly long time. Jeff stands nearby, close enough to offer support, but far enough away to give Annie privacy. Some things she needs to do on her own.

“Mom, did you hear me?” Annie asks after a while. Maybe the call dropped. Maybe her mother had a stroke. Maybe she hung up so she can call her lawyer and cut Annie out of her will, effective immediately.

“I’m here. I’m just…this is _wonderful_ Annie. I’m so happy for both of you.”

Annie barely registers the questions that follow, questions like, “How far along are you?” and “Would it be alright if I come to visit?” and “What can I do to help?” Because even though Annie hasn’t needed a mother in a long, long time, she never stopped wanting one. And while they’ll never be as close as say a Rory and Lorelei Gilmore (they’re more Lorelei and Emily at best), maybe, just maybe there’s hope for something better between them.


	4. A Little Annie Inside Of Annie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annie likes being pregnant. She's never gotten this much unqualified positive attention before. It's like being one of the popular girls in high school. Come to think of it, a lot of the popular girls at Riverside High School ended up getting pregnant too.

One of the few things Jeff and Annie rarely agree on is what music to listen to on their commute to work. Jeff’s musical tastes remain stubbornly committed to his Generation X sensibilities, Nirvana, Radiohead, Dave Matthews Band, (real fans call him Dave) and so on while Annie prefers more recent performers like Adele, Justin Bieber, (a guilty pleasure) and oddly enough, Childish Gambino.

Annie grins broadly as she hears the first few bars of _Kiss from a Rose_ play through the speakers of their Prius. The Lexus finally succumbed to the ravages of old age and poor maintenance, so the two of them bought a very reasonably priced pre-owned hybrid to replace it. Jeff has come to terms with the car, but not the song.

“Absolutely not,” he growls as he switches off the radio.

“Awww. Why not? You and the Dean gave such a moving performance last time,” Annie teases him.

“I still have PTSD from that ‘moving performance.’”

Annie rolls her eyes. Her husband can be so melodramatic. “Serves you right for flaking out on helping me move,” she retorts.

“I’ll never make that mistake again.”

“I mean, what is the point of all those muscles if you’re not going to put them to work?”

“Eye candy?” Jeff smirks.

“Besides that.”

“Well, I don’t think we’ll be moving again anytime soon. Between work and the baby, I think a little stability would do us some good.”

“True,” Annie says, a bit wistfully. 

Jeff glances over at her while they’re stopped at a red light and notices the real estate listing on her phone. “You’re looking at the house, aren’t you?” he asks.

“I know. We can’t afford it,” Annie sighs. “Doesn’t hurt to look though, right?”

“It is a great house,” Jeff agrees uncomfortably. He still feels guilty about the fact that his rebooted career hasn’t provided him with the earning potential to buy a house like that. Yeah, yeah, something, something, toxic masculinity, societal expectations, the other feminist stuff Britta talks about, etc. Jeff doesn’t care about any of that. He just wants Annie to have everything she deserves.

“Two thousand square feet, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a huge kitchen, a dedicated laundry room in a finished basement and a yard. A yard Jeff! With actual grass. And a tree you could put a swing on. And it’s close to work and it’s in a good school district. It’s pretty much perfect.”

“You know, I could talk to Mark,” Jeff offers carefully. “He said he’d always have a job for me, and he has contacts in Chicago. Or maybe I could pick up some consultant work.”

“Jeff, I don’t need you to do that. I’m happy with what we have. I’m proud of the life we’ve built,” Annie insists. “It’s just nice to dream.”

Jeff relaxes Annie reaches over to take his hand. He’s been with her long enough to tell the difference between when Annie is being truthful and when she’s lawyering him to placate his admittedly easily wounded ego. “It’s a great house,” he repeats, with less reservation this time.

“It is,” Annie nods. She brings Jeff’s hand to her lips and places a gentle, affectionate kiss on his knuckles. “But I have everything I need right here.”

While Jeff is distracted by how just how sweet his wife can be, she uses her free hand to turn the radio back on.

_Tumble outta bed and I stumble to the kitchen_

_Pour myself a cup of ambition_

_And yawn and stretch and try to come to life_

Jeff laughs as he realizes that Annie managed to trick him. His laughter turns to a confused, but appreciative smile once she starts singing along with Dolly.

_Jump in the shower and the blood starts pumping_

_Out on the street the traffic starts jumping_

_With folks like me on the job from 9 to 5_

“You know Dolly Parton?” Jeff asks, surprised.

“Who doesn’t?” Annie replies joyfully.

They share a smile as Jeff joins Annie in song.

_Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living_

_Barely getting by, it's all taking and no giving_

_They just use your mind and they never give you credit_

_It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it_

* * *

Annie likes being pregnant. She's never gotten this much unqualified positive attention before. It's like being one of the popular girls in high school. Come to think of it, a lot of the popular girls at Riverside High School ended up getting pregnant too.

One disadvantage is that pregnancy makes it a lot harder to stay inconspicuous while doing a stakeout. Her walk is more of a waddle now and she has to pee constantly, so instead of staying in the car while she and Jeff watch the hotel entrance, she keeps having to walk/waddle to the nearby gas station to use the bathroom every twenty minutes.

“You know, you don’t have to buy something every time you use the bathroom,” Jeff says as she gets back into the car with a new bag of snacks in hand.

“The sign says for customers only,” Annie replies briskly.

“You’re pregnant. I’m pretty sure they’ll give you a pass.”

“I wanted sour gummy worms anyway.” She tears into the packaging and devours a couple in a less than dignified fashion. Before Annie got pregnant, she didn’t even like sour gummy worms, or anything else that was super sour. This kid is doing weird things to her.

“Which are going to make you thirsty,” Jeff says, bemused. “Which is going to make you drink more. Which is going to make you need to pee more.”

“Hey, you’re the one that knocked me up,” Annie protests. “See how your bladder likes it when it’s got a Winger baby sitting on top of it.”

Jeff laughs. “I missed this.”

“Arguing about gas station bathroom etiquette?”

“Classic capers. You and me, on a _Jeff and Annie_ stakeout. Been a while since we did one of these.”

“You’re right,” Annie said, thinking back fondly to their Greendale adventures. “I forgot how much fun this was.”

“It’s gonna be harder to do this once we’re actually parents,” Jeff notes.

“Just because we’re ‘adults’ with ‘careers’ and ‘responsibilities’ doesn’t mean we can’t get into some mischief every once in a while,” Annie retorts. Her air quotes are particularly expressive today.

“Speaking of which,” Jeff mentions as he pulls out the large glass bottle he found in the glove compartment while she was in the bathroom. “Why is there chloroform in the glove compartment?”

“Just in case,” Annie replies. Her tone is weirdly casual.

“In case of what?” Jeff presses.

“It came in handy that one time. Back at your old law firm, remember?” True, it wasn’t the cleanest getaway in the history of black-tie gala heists, but she was able to help Troy and Abed escape thanks to that handy bottle of liquid knockout gas. And it’s not like she did any permanent damage.

“I do not remember that,” Jeff frowns. It occurs to him that there might be a connection to his well-meaning, but meddlesome friends crashing the party at his old firm and the rumor he heard about a janitor being knocked unconscious by a trio of ethnically diverse teenagers at the same event. “Wait. You were the one that chloroformed that janitor, weren’t you?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

“Who are you?” Jeff asks, slightly horrified.

“I’m Batman,” Annie replies in her best Christian Bale gravely Batman voice, which is truly terrible. Jeff still looks horrified. “Oh, come on. It’s not like I chloroformed you.”

“Why would you chloroform me?”

“No reason...” Annie mutters evasively.

“Did you chloroform me?”

“No. Troy wouldn’t let me.”

“What?!”

“I have to pee,” Annie announces. A lie, but a plausible one, and it gets her out of the conversation for the moment. She gets out of the car again, leaving an incredulous Jeff behind.

“We are going to have a longer conversation about this at some point!”

Annie doesn’t respond. Jeff sighs and resumes watching the entrance, hoping that Pierce makes an appearance sooner rather than later. He pulls out his phone to check his messages again, trying to piece together what his oldest, craziest friend might be up to.

**#oldwhitemansays, 11:30**

**Jeffrey my boy. I wanted to let you know that I’m in Chicago and I wanted to see if you’d like to have lunch. My treat of course. Let me know if you’ve available.**

**Oh, and don’t tell Annie. It’s supposed to be a secret.**

**#oldwhitemansays, 11:35**

**Not a secret. There is no secret.**

**But don’t tell her I’m here. It’s a secret.**

**#oldwhitemansays, 11:37**

**Actually, I just remembered, I’m actually in Cleveland, not Chicago.**

**Honest mistake. It could happen to anyone.**

**Rain check on lunch?**

**Don’t worry. I think he bought it.**

**He doesn’t suspect a thing.**

**I’ll see you at the hotel.**

**Hilton Chicago, right?**

**#oldwhitemansays, 12:11**

**Britta, it’s Pierce Hawthorne. How do you delete a text if you sent it to someone already?**

**Pierce Hawthorne, 12:20**

**Fine. Don’t tell me.**

This was the point where Jeff decided to take pity on Pierce.

**Jeff Winger, 12:23**

**Pierce, this is Jeff. You do realize you’ve been texting me the whole time, right?**

Not that it did any good.

**#oldwhitemansays, 12:55**

**Of course! I’m not an idiot.**

**This was all a ruse.**

**But don’t tell Annie.**

**You didn’t tell Annie, did you?**

**Pierce Hawthorne, 1:07**

**Jeffrey?**

**???**

So yeah, clearly Pierce is up to something, and the fact that it’s in Jeff and Annie’s backyard is all the justification they need to spy on him. And clearly whatever he’s up to has something to do with the two of them, or Annie at least, which means they need to figure out what it is as soon as possible. Pierce _means_ well, but his good intentions are usually spiked with crazy.

Jeff is startled out of his musings by a frantic Annie, who gets back in the car and yanks the binoculars from around Jeff’s neck so she can look at something in the distance.

“What?” Jeff asks. Annie looks like she’s seen a ghost.

“My mother is here,” she replies somberly.

Or that.

“ _What?_ ” Jeff peers through binoculars in the direction Annie indicates. Sure enough, Ruth Edison is there, standing just outside the hotel entrance. Jeff was looking for an overweight man in his seventies, not a petite woman in her fifties, so between the distance and frankly being distracted by his phone he didn’t notice her. “Did she tell you she was coming?”

“No. Did she tell you?” Annie asks.

“Why would she tell me?”

“I don’t know. Why’s she staying at the same hotel as Pierce?”

“You don’t think...”

Annie of course has already put together the horrifying implications of such an arrangement. _Jeff did say they hit it off at the wedding…_ But that was years ago. They couldn’t be. This is crazy. It’s crazy. There’s no way. It must be a coincidence. Or a ruse. Or a conspiracy. Something. Anything but _that._ There’s just no way.

Jeff and Annie watch in shock as Pierce emerges from the hotel lobby. The shock turns to revulsion as Pierce greets Ruth warmly and the two engage in what looks like a friendly conversation. Jeff is suddenly very happy he managed to talk Annie out of borrowing the directional microphone from the investigators office for their little side project. 

He’s less happy when Pierce offers his arm in an uncomfortably similar manner to the way he’s offered his arm to Annie hundreds of times over the years. Ruth takes it with a smile, and the two of them head to his car, or her car, or _their_ car together.

“Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

Jeff Winger has grown quite familiar with the variety and intensity of Annie’s screams over the years. Some are the result of a job well done on his part in the bedroom, thank you very much, no applause needed. Others are the result of an awful day at work or a frustrating phone call with her family (blood or Greendale) or just from watching the news on any given day.

But this is a different sort of scream. This is Annie in the middle of an Adderall-induced nervous breakdown. This is Annie as she’s (seemingly) about to be brutally murdered by a deranged former Spanish teacher. This is Annie when she _lost a pen._

“You okay?” Jeff asks timidly.

“No, I’m not okay!” Annie yells. “That is my mother. With Pierce.”

“Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks.” 

“Pierce, Jeff! Pierce. Pierce is seeing my mother. _Pierce_.”

“Look, just because they stayed at the same hotel doesn’t mean they’re together,” Jeff says, offering a technically plausible, but thoroughly convincing alternative explanation of the situation. “It’s circumstantial at best.”

“Jeff Winger, do _not_ try to lawyer me right now,” Annie retorts threateningly.

“Sorry. I’m just saying, maybe it’s not what it looks like,” Jeff explains in a final ill-conceived attempt to soothe his wife. “Maybe they’re just friends.”

There have been a few occasions throughout Jeff Winger’s life in which he became painfully aware that he just said the wrong thing. This is such an occasion.

“ _We_ were just friends!” Annie wails. In an instant, she goes from screaming to sobbing. Big, shaky, full-body sobs accompanied by ugly tears from her bloodshot eyes running down her scrunched-up face. “He’s gonna make me call him _Dad_ , isn’t he? Oh God. What if they get married? What if they get divorced? Do you _know_ what my mom was like after my dad left?”

“Let’s be realistic. Ruth would definitely be doing the dumping in that scenario.” It is Pierce after all. 

“You don’t know that,” Annie says indignantly. “What if he leaves her? What if he cheats on her? She’ll kill him. We’ll have to visit her in prison. She’ll expect you to represent her at the trial. Total conflict of interest, but she won’t care. And then our friends will hate us for siding with Pierce’s killer and our baby’s grandmother will be a murderer and Abed will want to make a movie about it and he’ll ask me to play my mother, because I look just like her and what am I going to do, say _no?_ ”

“I think we might be catastrophizing,” Jeff says, trying to stop the Annie spiral before it nosedives straight into crippling depression.

“I think we might be catastrophizing,” Annie repeats mockingly. “That’s you. That’s what you sound like.

Jeff sighs. “So, what do you want to do?” he asks wearily.

Annie takes a moment to breathe and reflect. Honestly, what right does she have to interfere? Who is she to deny the two of them a little happiness? And yes, a _relationship_ (ewwwwwwwwww) between Ruth Edison and Pierce Hawthorne is virtually guaranteed to blow up in all their faces in gloriously catastrophic fashion, but in the end, it’s just not Annie’s call to make. After all…some (mostly Frankie) said as much about her and Jeff. And if they (again, mostly Frankie) were wrong, maybe Annie could be wrong too.

“Nothing,” Annie says, surprisingly calmly. “We do nothing. They’re both adults and so are we. We have to respect each other enough to let each other want what we want, no matter how transparently self-destructive or empty our desires may be.”

“Okay,” Jeff nods. “We should probably screen their calls for a while though, right?”

“Definitely.”

“And if Pierce asks me to have lunch with him again?”

“We tell him we moved to Alaska.”

* * *

Annie’s most recent ultrasound confirmed that she and Jeff are indeed having a little girl. This means three things. The first is that Annie’s maternal intuition is indeed totally on point and no one should ever doubt her. The second is that Britta does indeed owe Troy twenty bucks. Whether Britta actually has twenty bucks is still up in the air.

The third is that they really do need to pick out a name. Annie’s due date is approaching rapidly. The two of them are having a lie-in, enjoying a lazy Saturday in their pajamas. Normally they go for a run together on Saturday mornings, but the size of Annie’s belly relative to the rest of her has forced her to adopt prenatal yoga in lieu of jogging.

“What about...Rachel?” Jeff says as he traces a lazy circle over Annie’s belly. He smiles when he feels a kick. It never gets old. To him, at least. The novelty has worn off for Annie, especially at night.

Annie shakes her head, then curls in closer to Jeff’s chest. “Too Biblical. What about...Dorothy?”

Jeff makes a face. “Too Wizard of Oz. Hannah?”

Annie scowls. “Reminds me of Hannah Chandler from high school. She was so mean to me. I’m pretty sure she's the one that started the whole ‘Little Annie Adderall’ thing.”

“Wasn’t everyone mean to you?”

“You don’t have to rub it in…”

“Sorry.”

“Abed’s right,” Annie says. “It is hard coming up with names.” The prospect of actually giving her child a name, something that will define her for her entire life is incredibly daunting. Like, what kind of person would Annie be today if her mother named her Sloane, or Michelle, or Diane, or Sarah, or God forbid, one of those double names like Mary Elizabeth?

“You know, Britta’s been hinting for us to name the kid after her,” Jeff says. Hinting is probably the wrong word, because hinting implies subtlety and Britta is not subtle. Her position is that since Jeff and Annie never would have gotten together if not for Britta, that she is therefore entitled to the naming rights of their firstborn.

Annie snorts. “Wow. That is not happening. I love Britta, but I am not naming my daughter after a water filter.”

“Plus, if we name one kid after someone in the study group, the others will get jealous and we’ll have to have four more kids just to shut them up,” Jeff remarks.

“I am not having five children. What are we, Mormon?” Annie asks incredulously. “I think we can manage two, maybe three at the most, and that’s only if we have twins or if your vasectomy doesn’t take.”

“And when exactly am I getting this elective surgery?” Jeff asks. Not that he has any objections.

“As soon as I push the _second_ human being you put inside me out of my vagina,” Annie replies dryly.

“Touché,” Jeff laughs, tilting his head to kiss her hair. “Although, I can’t believe you’re already thinking about having another kid. Don’t you think you should finish making this one first?”

Annie shrugs against him. “I’ll be almost thirty by the time I bounce back from this pregnancy. I want to finish having children before I turn thirty-five, and there’s no sense in procrastinating.”

“Do I need to remind you that a baby is nothing like a diorama?”

“A project is a project. Plus, I want our daughter to have a friend.”

Jeff makes a mental note to help Annie curtail the very Ruth Edison-like impulse to treat a child like a project. He’s not the only one that needs to avoid repeating patterns.

“Siblings do not always end up being friends. This isn’t _Frozen_ ,” Jeff replies. _Let it go, let it go_. Dammit. He almost made it a full year without getting that song stuck in his head again.

“Jordan and Elijah are friends,” Annie counters.

“I suspect that’s only because Shirley literally put the fear of God in them. You and Anthony aren’t friends.” Even though Annie patched things up with her younger brother, the two still aren’t particularly close. Troy and Abed are more like brothers to Annie than Anthony ever will be.

“Bad example. We were too far apart in age,” Annie says dismissively. The five year gap between them meant they never went to school together. Between that and being at different life stages throughout their youth, they just never had a lot in common. “Plus, I went to rehab.” Plus that.

“I am sixteen years older than you and you are my best friend.”

“Awww,” Annie coos. She loves it when he calls her his best friend. She didn’t have one when she was growing up. Come to think of it, neither did Jeff. “You’re my best friend too. But it’s different with kids. The years mean more when you’re that young.”

“True. I’m just saying, don’t feel like you have to rush on my account,” Jeff says. Their age difference requires certain compromises on both their parts when it comes to their respective goals. “I’ve made peace with the fact that I’ll be in my sixties by the time the kids are grown.”

Anne looks up at him and smiles. “I’m looking forward to growing old with you,” she says fondly.

“You won’t look it. Have you seen your mom?”

“I hate to break it to you, but a lot of makeup and hair dye goes into making Ruth Edison seem ageless.”

“So then you’ll have that forty-something, looks she’s like thirty-something MILF thing going for you.”

“Jeff! Gross. Don’t say MILF.”

Jeff laughs. He knew it would gross her out, which is exactly why he said it. Half the fun of being married is annoying the crap out of each other. “I mean, you’re about to be a mom, and you know how much I like to…”

“Do not finish that sentence,” Annie growls. “Jerk.” She swats his chest. Jeff catches her hand and brings it to his lips.

“And yet, you love me,”

“I do.” She stretches up to kiss him.

“Hey, can you promise me something?” Jeff asks, suddenly oddly serious.

“Sure. What?” Annie asks.

“Promise me we’ll set time aside for just the two of us. Yes, we’re going to be parents, and yes, our whole lives are going to change, but we’re still Jeff and Annie. I don’t want us to lose sight of that,” Jeff says. 

“I promise,” Annie says softly. It’s times like this that Annie is reminded just how deeply she is loved. “Date night, once a week?”

“Deal. Of course, we’ll have to find a good babysitter.”

“I’ve already scheduled interviews.”

“Of course you have,” Jeff chuckles. “It’s official. I’m the fun parent and you’re the responsible parent.”

“Why do you get to be the fun parent?” Annie complains.

“Because someone has to be the responsible parent, and do you really think it should be me?” Jeff asks. “Besides, you think _learning_ is fun.”

“Learning _is_ fun, Jeff.”

“I know,” Jeff says in his _if you say so Annie_ way. “And if our daughter is anything like you, and I hope she is, I’m sure she’ll think so too.”

Annie smiles, seemingly satisfied. “Hey, what about Sophia?” she asks. They still need a name after all.

“Is that a Hebrew name?” Jeff asks.

“Greek technically. It means wisdom.”

“Maybe. I dunno. I feel like I’ve seen a lot of Sophies around.”

* * *

Annie’s baby shower is the first time all seven of the Greendale Seven gathered together in person since the funeral and the first time they met up in Chicago. Abed is still living and working in LA. Troy spends half his time there with Abed and the other half in Greendale with Britta, which seems to suit both his platonic and romantic life partners’ needs. Shirley is back in Greendale with her family as well and Pierce still spends most of his time on the road, “doing America,” as he put it.

In addition to the study group, Dean Craig Pelton is present, as well as Frankie, who agreed to accompany Britta and split the cost of gas. Duncan is there too, because he’s never been to Chicago and it’s not like he has anything better to do. Annie’s mother Ruth is there, as well as her brother Anthony, and Jeff’s mother Doreen. 

The two future grandmothers aren’t particularly fond of one another. Doreen still holds a grudge on Annie’s behalf due to Ruth’s past mistreatment of her daughter and Ruth is both very aware of said grudge and the extent to which Doreen considers Annie her own.

Which means there are thirteen people crammed into Jeff and Annie’s eight hundred square foot apartment. Actually, there are fourteen, but no one has spotted Chang yet.

“I can’t believe I’m finally going to be a grandfather,” Pierce says proudly as he gives Annie a warm hug.

Jeff frowns, looking over at Ruth, who appears to be inspecting their apartment critically and then back at Pierce and Annie. “Pierce, you know you’re not…”

“Just let him have this,” Annie says.

“I still can’t believe you let Jeff do this to you,” Britta says, eyeing Annie’s bump suspiciously. “No glove, no love, baby.”

“Brit-ta, your lifestyle mistakes are your own business,” Shirley says reproachfully. “Annie is a married woman.”

“Jeff didn't 'do this' to me Britta,” Annie explains a little defensively. “ _We_ did this together. I wanted to get pregnant. It actually took us a while to conceive. For a while, I was worried that we couldn't.”

“Wow. Sorry. I wasn't expecting that,” Britta says sheepishly. She assumed Annie’s pregnancy was unplanned, mainly because Britta assumes all pregnancies are unplanned. “I guess my default setting is 'don't get pregnant.' Kind of weird to wrap my head around one of my friends trying to do it on purpose. No offense Shirley.”

“None taken,” Shirley says in her low voice.

“I take it you're still committed to staying childfree?” Annie asks.

Britta nods. “Between global warming, skyrocketing wealth disparity, and the rise of right-wing authoritarian regimes all around the world, I sure as hell wouldn't want to subject a kid to whatever post-apocalyptic hellscape the next generation is doomed to inherit,” Britta explains. She stops once she notices the horrified look on Annie’s face. “Then again, I'm sure your kid is going to have an amazing life and that nothing bad will ever happen to her.”

“Nice save Jim Jones,” Shirley snaps. “Maybe instead of a stroller, I should have bought Annie a shovel. That way she can get to work digging her family a doomsday bunker. Maybe you could get her started, since you seem to enjoy digging yourself into holes.”

“I'm sorry. I suck at this. It’s just, it was one thing seeing you online. 'Annie's pregnant, isn't that adorable?' But seeing you in person…”

“It got a thousand times realer, didn’t it?” Annie says knowingly.

“Yeah. God, Annie. You're having a baby!” Britta cries, hugging her tight.

“Yeah, I am.”

“You are gonna be such a good mom.”

“I hope so. It’s a little late to back out of it now,” Annie says, rubbing her now very prominent belly.

“You've got this sweetie,” Shirley says confidently. “You got a good man, so you're already halfway there. You just need to keep your career, your husband, your child, and yourself in balance. Figure out what's important, learn to let the rest go, and you'll be fine.”

“That doesn't sound easy,” Annie says.

“It's not. You're gonna screw it up sometimes. But you'll be okay. And when it gets too hard, I'm always just a phone call away,” Shirley reassures her.

Britta briefly considers mentioning how phrases like work-life balance are tools that the patriarchy uses to justify workplace sexism, withholding promotions from ambitious women like Annie for abstaining from putting in extra hours in favor of the time-consuming work of caring for children while excusing men from doing the same. She ultimately decides not to contradict Shirley, a woman who as a wife, mother, and small business owner, might have some real-world experience that Britta lacks.

“Me too. I support you,” Britta says, pumping her fist as if to say _solidarity sister._

“Okay…” Annie says skeptically.

“Listen to my tone and not my words.”

“Thanks Shirley. I know I can count on you,” Annie says gratefully. “And Britta, your...tone was very nice.”

“I’m so happy for you guys,” Craig chimes in tearfully. It seems he’s gotten past his ill-fated infatuation with Jeff, or at least has gotten better at compartmentalizing it. “And don’t worry. I promise, there will always be a place for your daughter at Greendale.”

“I appreciate that Craig,” Jeff says, humoring him. He shares a look with Annie that says there’s no way in hell their daughter is going to Greendale Community College.

“So, what’s the birth plan?” Abed asks eagerly. Childbirth is peak human drama. “The anthropology classroom was a nice riff on the formula, but you can’t go wrong with elevator labor.”

Annie’s eyes narrow. “Abed, I am not giving birth in an elevator,” she says flatly. She wouldn’t put it past him to engineer such a situation.

“Seems like a missed opportunity to me.”

“Freaky,” Troy says eagerly as he puts his hand on Annie’s belly and feels her baby kick. “It’s like there’s a little Annie inside of Annie.”

Annie giggles. She’s so glad that even after all these years, Troy still hasn’t lost his childlike sense of wonder.

“Are you getting tired of random people asking if they can feel your belly yet dear?” Doreen asks knowingly. 

Annie shrugs. “I’ve gotten used to it.”

“Alright bitches!” Chang announces, making his presence known. He yells through his hands, which are cupped like a megaphone. “Let’s get this party started. Someone drop that beat so I can get my Chang on.”

“What is Chang doing here?” Jeff demands.

“No idea,” Troy replies.

“I didn’t invite him,” Abed adds.

“I was under the impression he was still in prison,” Frankie says. The former math teacher disappeared shortly after Annie’s FBI internship several years ago, much to her relief. She assumed his penchant for criminal insanity, or insane criminality, finally caught up to him.

“Chang went to prison?” Pierce asks.

“Serves him right,” Duncan nods.

“That’s just what I wanted you to think. It was a mental institution,” Chang sneers, as if he beat the system or something. “So, joke’s on you suckers.” 

“Did you at least bring a gift?” Britta asks.

“Why would I bring a gift?”

“Because it’s a baby shower,” Craig says, pointing to the very pregnant Annie.

“Wait, you’re pregnant?” Chang says, looking stricken. “Is it mine?” Annie gasps an extra-offended gasp.

“Oh Lord, not this again,” Shirley mutters.

“Seriously. Who invited Chang?” Annie demands.

The mention of Chang piques Ruth’s interest. She snaps to attention and marches over from the other side of the room. “Annie!” she shouts, scandalized. “That is no way to talk to a rabbi young lady.” Granted, Rabbi Chang is a tad unorthodox, but he was kind enough to officiate their wedding, and Ruth taught her daughter to be respectful. “I am so sorry Rabbi. You know how pregnancy hormones are. Plus, Annie’s always been a little meshuggeneh.” 

“Standing right here, Mom,” Annie replies, rolling her eyes. “And this isn’t Rabbi Chang. It’s the other Chang.”

“Oh.” Ruth missed a few details. “There’s another one?”

“Hey! Since when am I the ‘other Chang?’” Chang demands.

“I’m sorry. Who is this man?" Doreen asks, confused.

“He was our Spanish teacher. Like, ten years ago,” Troy says. “Now he’s just this weird dude that shows up uninvited to stuff that we can’t seem to get rid of.”

“I think he might have followed me,” Britta says apologetically. “I saw him snooping around the dumpster outside my apartment the other day. Sorry Annie.”

“Ugh. I did not follow you. I fell asleep in the trunk of your car and woke up here. Like I would come voluntarily,” Chang scoffs.

“That’s what that smell was?” Frankie asks. Britta’s car had a distinct, unfamiliar, and unpleasant odor to it she assumed was cat-related. It made for an unpleasant road trip.

“Speaking as someone who made the mistake of letting him crash on my couch, you’re gonna want to go ahead and set that car on fire,” Jeff says, only half-sarcastically.

“I can help you make it look like an accident,” Annie says too eagerly. Everyone stares at her, including her husband. “What? I work in forensics. I’ve studied arson extensively. It’s all about finding an ‘accidental’ point of origin with an easily explainable accelerant.”

“Annie’s using her powers for evil now,” Abed notes appreciatively. He tents his fingers like a movie supervillain. “Plot twist.”

“Not evil. Just plausible deniability,” Annie insists. Her interest is purely academic, of course.

“I’m going to go against my better judgement and pretend I didn’t hear anything about any alleged arson plans,” Frankie says, embracing plausible deniability.

“Arson. Nice,” Anthony says. It’s the first thing he’s said all day.

“You know, in England, we call arson a ‘hooligan’s barbecue,’” Duncan says to no one in particular.

“Okay, are you actually British, or is this some kind of long-term con?” Jeff asks. He’s looked up some of these phrases and a lot of them don’t hold up to a Google search.

“There’s not going to be any arson,” Britta says.

“More like carson,” Pierce chortles. He raises his hand for a high-five. No one indulges him.

“Because it’ll be an ‘accident…’” Troy says skeptically.

“Or accidents!” Britta insists.

“Well, at least get it fumigated. You do not want lice,” Shirley says, gesturing to Chang, who’s scratching himself like a feral dog.

“Hey! I don’t have lice!” Chang shouts.

“Then why do you keep scratching yourself?” Abed asks.

“That would be the ringworm.”

Everyone backs away from Chang with a disgusted look on their face. It’s hard, because the apartment is tiny.

“I’ll take him to the vet,” Craig says reluctantly.

“You mean doctor, right?” Frankie asks, concerned.

“A vet is a kind of doctor.” Technically true.

“I know a good one!” Britta offers happily. “He has a great bedside manner and he’s very flexible on payment plans.” The latter is especially important to her.

“You know you can’t take a human to the vet, right?” Doreen asks. This is only the second time since Jeff and Annie’s wedding that she’s gotten the full Greendale experience. They might be in Chicago, but there’s enough Greendale here to replicate it.

“That’s racist!” Chang yells. “Or is it speciest?”

“It’s definitely somethingist,” Pierce replies.

“Gentlemen, if you would be so kind to send Mr. Chang on his way, I would appreciate it,” Ruth says, addressing Troy, Abed, Duncan, and Craig. “I would prefer that my daughter avoid contracting lice.”

“It’s ringworm!”

“Or ringworm.”

“Closing time old friend,” Duncan says, clapping the angry gremlin on the shoulder. “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

-

After Chang is ejected from the premises and the men that manhandled him have a chance to spray themselves down with Tinactin, it’s time for Annie to open her presents. The first she doesn’t have to unwrap, as it’s simply a stroller with a bow tied to it, courtesy of Shirley. “It was Ben’s,” Shirley explains. “It’s seen some action, but it’s still in great condition.”

Britta’s contribution is a bottle of wine, likely procured from the Vatican, as no one who goes to the Vatican orders wine. “You’re not ‘just’ a mom after all. You deserve something nice for yourself,” Britta insists. It’s actually very sweet of her. A lot of people forget about the parents at these events.

Troy grins when Annie pulls a _Troy and Abed in the Morning_ onesie out of a somewhat inelegantly wrapped box. His grin fades when she bursts into tears. “Trust me, she loves it,” Jeff promises. Annie nods in agreement between sobs. Pregnancy hormones are weird.

Abed doesn’t have a physical present to give them. “I got my own Netflix account,” he explains, “So that way you don’t have to deal with me using yours.” It’s the thought that counts.

Doreen gives them a large box filled with an assortment of baby and toddler toys. “Some of these were Jeffrey’s,” she says fondly, happy that she finally has a grandchild to pass them on to. She hugs Annie, who starts sobbing again.

Ruth gives them several gifts, each of which are obviously books. They’re all childcare and development books, most of which Annie already has, including Dr. Spock. “There’s a gift receipt,” Ruth says as she realizes her mistake.

Anthony gives them a truly massive box of diapers. “Babies poop,” he says.

Craig gives them an envelope containing a voucher for a free class at Greendale Community College scholarship, which definitely will go unused. “And there’s plenty more where that came from,” he says proudly. Now that he’s mastered Excel, he’s been brushing up on his PowerPoint skills.

Frankie gives them a set of assorted office supplies, “I thought they would be useful,” she says, having carefully selected the brands to suit Annie’s preferences.”

Duncan gives Jeff an unwrapped bottle of Macallan, unaware that Jeff is working the program. “You were serious about that?” he asks Britta, who shrugs. “Very well. More for Annie then,” he says, offering her the bottle. Annie doesn’t drink scotch.

Last, but not least, is Pierce, who presents each of them with a pair of small, black, identical boxes. Inside each box is an identical, otherwise unremarkable key. “Alright people. Begin Phase Two!” he announces.

“Time to go Annie,” Ruth says to a very confused Annie.

“Annie, Jeff, you’re riding with us,” Troy announces, hurrying the couple out the door. “The rest of you, rendezvous at the rally point. Move out!”

“What’s going on?” Annie asks.

“Are we being kidnapped?” Jeff asks. The black SUV Troy is escorting them into does little to convince him otherwise. That window tint can’t possibly be legal.

“All will be clear in time Jeffrey,” Pierce says cryptically.

“You know, they say you’re never supposed to let them take you to a second location,” Jeff quips.

“Just get in the van.”

* * *

“We’re here,” Troy announces as the SUV pulls to a stop. Between the tint and the divider between the front and back seats, Jeff and Annie were unable to see where they were going for the duration of the trip. They might as well have had buckets over their heads.

Jeff and Annie step out into an oddly familiar neighborhood. Pierce eagerly leads them down the street, enjoying the theatricality of the reveal. Annie stops in her tracks when she sees it, bringing Jeff to a halt as well.

“It’s the house,” Annie whispers. She grips Jeff’s hand tight.

“Yeah. It is,” he replies.

They’ve seen it online dozens of times, but only once in person. There was an open-house a few months ago, and even though it was out of their price range, just like basically every other house in Chicago, Annie insisted they take a look, just for fun. It sold a couple of weeks later, which was unsurprising. It’s a beautiful house, with a blue exterior and white trim, spacious without being wasteful, in excellent condition in spite of being an older home, with a great yard and a real live tree. Perfect for a growing family.

“Well? What are you waiting for?” Pierce prods them. “Go inside. You have the keys.”

Jeff and Annie share a perplexed look, then take the keys out of their pocket. Jeff opts to let his wife put her key in the lock, which turns easily, opening the front door. The living room furnished with a sofa and other seating appropriate for the space, and there are streamers, balloons, and a banner that says _Welcome Home_ in bright bold letters.

“I just closed on it last week,” Pierce explains. “Your names are on the deed. See?” He pulls a piece of paper out of his jacket to show them. It is indeed a deed with the names Jeffrey Winger and Annie Winger written on it. “There’s a moving truck coming next Thursday. If you want. Mexicans. Very hard workers. They can have you moved in by Friday.”

The two of them stare at Pierce in shock. “How did you…” Annie asks after a moment.

“I may have mentioned you guys were looking at it,” Britta says with a grin.

“And I helped him find it because Pierce still doesn’t know how to use the Internet,” Troy adds.

“I distracted both of you with a series of subtle misdirects and diversions over the last several months so that you wouldn’t realize what we were doing,” Abed explains. The best part in every caper is when the various conspirators reveal their part in the plan.

“Is that why you asked me to help you sue Luke Perry?” Jeff asks. “Because that was the very definition of a frivolous lawsuit.”

“Anyone who watched the _real_ Inspector Spacetime would disagree with you, but yes. Pierce and Ruth needed me to keep you busy for those three hours while they closed on the house.”

“I made the cake, which I realize isn’t as important, but I do bake a damn good cake,” Shirley interjects.

“And I was kept in the dark so that I wouldn’t give away the surprise,” Craig says proudly.

“That was my role. Keeping Craig in the dark,” Frankie explains. “It was not difficult.”

“I too was kept in the dark, mainly because no one thought to mention it to me in the first place,” Duncan mentions.

“Ruth was kind enough to help me check the place out and seal the deal,” Pierce continues.

“Your apartment is fine for a young couple starting out, but it’s far too small to raise a child in,” Ruth says. “This way you’ll have space for a proper nursery and a spare bedroom. You could turn it into a home office or perhaps a guest room.”

“Anyway, it’s yours,” Pierce says. “Move in. Sell it. Do whatever you want with it.”

“Pierce, this is too much,” Annie protests tearfully. These tears have nothing to do with her pregnancy.

“No, it isn’t,” he insists. “Look, I’m an old man. I don’t know how much time I have left. None of us do, really. You and Jeff are the closest I’ll ever get to having children. Plus, you idiots work for peanuts for those liberal do-gooders, so it’s not like you’ll ever be able to afford a house on your own. I want to do this for you. We all do. We love you.”

“Pierce, I um, I don’t know what to say,” Jeff stammers. There’s a lump in his throat.

“Look at that! I left Jeff Winger speechless,” Pierce proclaims.

“Thank you,” Jeff replies. There’s nothing else to say.

“You’re welcome, son.”

Jeff and Annie both hug Pierce, which he accepts happily. Troy and Britta join in the impromptu group hug, followed by Abed and Shirley, then Ruth and Doreen, then Craig, Duncan, and a somewhat reluctant Frankie.

They stay in the hug for a while, breaking apart once they realize Chang has joined the hug, prompting Duncan to swat him away. Annie watches as Pierce and Ruth share a smile, noting, not for the first time, how well the two of them seem to get along. She figures the least she can do is be supportive.

“Mom, Pierce, I know you guys don’t want to make a big deal about it or anything, but I just wanted to tell you that while I don’t completely understand your, um, relationship, I’m really happy for you,” Annie says.

Ruth looks genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?” she asks.

“You and Pierce?” Jeff says.

Ruth and Pierce share another look as they realize what the children are hinting at. They both burst into laughter.

“Annie, I know you look at me as a father figure, but just to be clear, I have no intention of dating your mother,” Pierce chuckles.

“Pierce and I are friends,” Ruth insists. “I know you two may find this hard to believe, but men and women are capable of platonic friendship.”

“Huh,” Annie replies, surprised.

“Sorry we misjudged your relationship,” Jeff says with an awkward shrug.

“Not to worry, Jeff,” Ruth says breezily. “Pierce would never cheat on your mother.”

The comment almost escapes them.

“Wait, what!?”

But not quite.

Ruth shoots her daughter and son-in-law an impish grin. She’s only joking, of course.

Probably. 

Maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Amrywiol, jeffwik, and Little_Annie_Adderall for beta reading, as well as Team Discord for all the support an encouragement.


End file.
